Geocaching in Shropshire and beyond…

Shropshire Way Caching and 2 FTF’s near to home

On Sunday I was at a loose end as I normally spend some time logging Saturday’s finds, but as we went caching on Friday this week, we’d already logged all our finds yesterday.

I was itching to go out caching so decided to head off and find the new(ish) Shropshire Way caches between Buildwas and Much Wenlock. I soon arrived at the parking spot and off I set.

A nice walk down a bridleway later and I had an easy find on the first cache. The next couple of caches were uneventful and all easy finds.

I then headed off to near Benthall Hall (a lovely National Trust property near Ironbridge) to do the cache down the hill overlooking Buildwas power station. A really nice hide here – I don’t want to spoil it for future finders so won’t say any more.

Time was getting on now, so just time for one final cache before going home. The nearest one to do was the 100th cache set by The Washers (the setters of the first cache we ever found).

This proved to be an easy find and on checking our finds, it was the 100th Washers cache we have found – nice to have a full set :-).

On the way home, I checked on my iPhone to see if any new caches were out near home as I knew Big Farmer Giles had submitted 19 new caches on Friday and so perhaps they had come out. Two of them had, so I decided to head off and find them, but not until I’d enjoyed a lovely roast dinner at home. Sunday’s don’t get much better than this :-).

BFG’s caches looked like sneaky hides and Isaac loves that kind of thing so he came with me. We were soon at the first one and sure enough, it was so sneaky we could not spot it! We set about looking for anything that did not look quite right and soon settled on something. It would not budge so we started to think it was not the cache. Thankfully I persevered and managed to loosen the cache from it’s elaborate attachment mechanism. What a belter of a cache it was too – this is the standard all micro’s should aspire to – a really nice piece of engineering. FTF to us :-).

The next cache was not far away and was a quick 2 stage multi. We managed to drive all the way to GZ (not sure if you are supposed to, but there were no signs saying not and it was quiet) and had an easy find of the first stage. The second stage was just as easy and afforded some great views over towards the old Bury Walls Hill Fort. Another nice FTF too.

On the way home, we wondered if any other cachers would be chasing the FTF’s so decided to head back past the first cache. No cachers there, but as we were going through the next village, we spotted Wild Goosey, Nozi Parkers and Choo Choo coming the other way. We drove back to the sneaky micro to have a chat and watch them search.

As we got out of the cars, they mentioned that Allun from the Shropshire Seekers was on his way too. Sure enough, he soon arrived at GZ. They found the sneaky cache disappointingly quickly (we’d left a bit of a cachers trail as it was un-avoidable, although we’d also left some false trails too, just to throw people off the scent ;-)).

We said our goodbye’s and headed off home, while the rest of them went on to do the multi we’d done earlier.